Automatically stopping and starting can conserve fuel and reduce emissions of a vehicle. Further, the burden of specifically requesting that the engine of the vehicle be stopped and started may be removed from the vehicle operator so that the operator's attention may be focused on driving the vehicle rather than the added tasks of repeatedly starting and stopping the engine. However, simply stopping and stopping the engine via a timer or when the vehicle comes to a stop may not fully leverage the capability of the stop/start vehicle to conserve fuel. Additionally, if the engine is frequently stopped and immediately restarted, the stop/start feature may be bothersome to the driver and may not conserve as much fuel as is desired.
The inventors herein have recognized the above-mentioned disadvantages and have developed a method for operating a vehicle, comprising: inhibiting automatic stopping of an engine of a vehicle in response to traffic conditions received from an on-board camera.
By inhibiting engine stopping in response to input from an on-board camera, it may be possible to allow the engine to continue to operate during conditions where stopping the engine may provide little fuel savings. For example, output from an on-board camera and output from a range detecting device may be useful to determine that the driver of the vehicle is stopping for a non-transitory street sign (e.g., a metallic street sign that does not change operating state). Since the driver does not have to wait for the street sign to change state, stopping the engine automatically may be inhibited so that the engine is not stopped and then immediately restarted. Inhibiting automatic stopping of the engine can reduce starter motor degradation. Further, inhibiting automatic stopping of the engine may decrease fuel consumption when the engine stop time would otherwise be short in duration.
The present description may provide several advantages. For example, the approach may reduce starter degradation. Further, the method may reduce fuel consumption during conditions where the engine would be stopped and restarted shortly thereafter. Additionally, the method may improve the vehicle driving experience for the driver by stopping the engine more opportunistically.
The above advantages and other advantages, and features of the present description will be readily apparent from the following Detailed Description when taken alone or in connection with the accompanying drawings.
It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.